Ropa lives in Edinburgh, and makes a living a messenger for the dead – bringing messages back to their loved ones. While it’s clearly a fantasy, it starts out in what could be our world, but very quickly, clues start to come in that Ropa’s world is not at all like ours. The people of Scotland tried to rebel, and the English king has put down that rebellion quite harshly. So Ropa is just trying to survive, with a grandmother and younger sister to take care of.
Ropa is such a great character – she’s dropped out of school to take care of her family, but is still trying to keep herself educated, and that’s where the Library of the Dead comes in. A friend of hers from school offers to sneak her in when she’s trying to figure out some weird happenings around town, and she ends up a fully inducted member of this vast underground library, seemingly by accident. She’s completely not like anyone else that uses the library, and this promises to be an interesting series. This book was a lot of set up, but definitely has some great hints of things to come.